The Devil Is a Southpaw

A haunting, unforgettable novel of obsession, pride, and forgiveness, exploring the friendship and rivalry between two gifted boys in harrowing circumstances, from the acclaimed writer ofThe Removed

Milton Muleborn has envied Matthew Echota, a talented young Cherokee artist, ever since they were locked up together in a dangerous juvenile detention center in the late 1980s. Until Matthew escaped, that is.

A novel within a novel, we read here Milton’s account of the story of their childhood even as, years later, he remains jealous of Matthew’s extraordinary abilities and unlikely success. Milton reveals secrets about their friendship, their families, and their nightmarish, sometimes surreal, experience of imprisonment. In revisiting the past, he explores the echoing traumas of racial and institutional violence and the systemic injustices in our systems of incarceration and so-called reform.

Filled with Brandon Hobson’s trademark swirling yet visceral writing, The Devil Is a Southpaw is an ambitious, elegant, and propulsive novel in the spirit of Vladimir Nabokov and Gabriel García Márquez.